India has More than 28,000 "Black Fungus" Cases: Health Minister
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India has more than 28,000 'black fungus' cases: Health Minister:
"From 28 states, we have some 28,252 cases of mucormycosis till now. Out of this, 86 percent, or 24,370 cases, have a history of COVID-19 and 62.3 percent, or 17,601, have a history of diabetes," [Health Minister Harsh] Vardhan said in a meeting with a group of federal ministers.
[...] Mucormycosis causes blackening or discolouration over the nose, blurred or double vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties and coughing of blood. Coronavirus patients with diabetes and a weakened immune system are particularly prone to attack.
[...] Health experts say India's poor air quality and excessive dust in cities, like Mumbai, make it easier for the fungi to thrive, terming the recent spike in cases a matter of "serious concern".
"We and most mainstream hospitals have seen more mucormycosis cases in the past month than in the previous five years," Dr Arvinder Soin, chairman of the Medanta Liver Transplant Institute at Gurugram, told Al Jazeera.
[...] Dr Sumit Mrig, who heads the ENT department at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital in New Delhi [said] they used to see one or two such cases in a week before the second wave of the pandemic. [...] at present, we are seeing five to six such patients on a daily basis," Mrig said.
[...] "Apart from the high mortality associated with disease which rapidly spreads from nose and sinuses to the eye and brain in a span of 24 to 48 hours, if treatment is not initiated on time, the patient can lose his eyesight. Once it involves the brain, the mortality is approximately 80 percent," Mrig added.
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